Daily news and top headlines for broadband communications engineering and design professionals

CFO Fran Shammo teased about an over-the-top product that might be introduced in the summer. He said the IoT is now a defined, growing business with specific revenue attached. He also reiterated Verizon’s opposition to Title II reclassification.

In an effort to keep broadband subscribers up to speed on their data-plan usage, GCI has launched its “No Worries” broadband tiers. The No Worries broadband plans give GCI subscribers the ability to manage their monthly Internet bills, which in turn should eliminate surprise overage fees.

Cox Communications had promoted Janice Roberts to senior vice president of field services. With the promotion, Roberts now manages all residential and Cox Business field operations across Cox’s footprint, including regional call centers and operations support at the company’s Atlanta headquarters.

Read through the tweets posted by CraveTV and Shomi and you'll see suggestions that users might finally get Apple TV apps to access the Canadian streaming services. If it was up to Bell Media, CraveTV would've launched with an Apple TV app, so users could stream content to their big screen TVs easily. But Apple didn't allow it to happen.

In recent weeks, SpaceX CEO Elon Musk has talked about lofting a network of satellites that would be used for delivering broadband services, including remotest areas on Earth. Speculation is that Google might be investing to help finance that vision.

Mike LaJoie, former executive vice president and chief technology officer of Time Warner Cable (TWC), has joined Guavus' board of directors and will serve as chairman of the board. The company specializes in big data analytics solutions for operational intelligence and the Internet of Things.

Click! Network in Tacoma, Washington, said it has earned MEF CE 2.0 certifications for several metro Ethernet services. The organization claims to be the first municipally owned network to achieve certification from the Metro Ethernet Forum.

The Cable Center announced Wednesday morning that former National Cable & Telecommunications CEO Decker Anstrom was named its 2015 Bresnan Ethics in Business Award recipient. The award was named in honor of Bresnan Communications founder and chairman William J. Bresnan, who was also the long-time chairman of the Cable Center board.

Newsmax TV, which targets baby boomers, announced it has struck a distribution agreement with the National Cable Television Cooperative (NCTC), providing the news and information service access to 900-plus member cable systems, encompassing nearly 12 million MVPD subscribers. Newsmax TV also has deals in place with Dish Network and DirecTV that cover approximately 35 million homes.

Virgin Media chief operating officer Dana Strong will move into a new role at the end of this month as senior vice president, chief transformation officer at corporate parent Liberty Global. In her new position, Strong will report directly to Liberty Global CEO Mike Fries and she’ll also join Liberty’s executive management committee.

Coming off its best quarter yet, Netflix is accelerating its international expansion in hopes its original programming will hook millions more subscribers on the Internet video service. Netflix Inc. added 13 million worldwide subscribers last year, including 4.3 million during the final three months, according to figures released Tuesday in the company's fourth-quarter earnings report.

Network neutrality, cybersecurity, and paid sick leave are likely topics for this evening’s State of the Union address by President Barack Obama. The President in November announced his support of net neutrality, and what he calls “lowering the cost of launching a new idea.”

Rentrak said it is partnering with Kantar Shopcom to integrate retail purchase data and information into its television viewing data. The combined data should give advertisers a vastly more detailed ability to not only target ads to viewers, but also to monitor the effectiveness of marketing campaigns.

A new 5G research partnership involving China Mobile Research Institute and Nutaq Innovation will start work on testing and fine-tuning massive MIMO antenna applications, with a goal of 800 Gbps speeds -- far, far beyond the typical aims for 5G technology.

Alticast has promoted John Carlucci to the new position of president of Alticast North America. He has been Alticast’s CTO for the last three years, and he will keep that title as well. Carlucci joined the company from Time Warner Cable.